Cyberspace: Malevolent Actors, Criminal Opportunities, and Strategic Competition

This report is intended to provide cyberspace decision-makers with a more comprehensive, clearer description of cyberspace, which they can use to manage and make decisions about cyberspace programs to improve the effectiveness of government in this critically important area. The report offers an assessment of, and recommendations focused on, the unique characteristics of cyberspace, which were initially designed without much focus on security or risk management. This publication has three parts: the first focuses on cyberspace, itself; the second on some of the major forms of malevolence or threats that have become one of its defining characteristics; and the third on possible responses to these threats. One of the most significant features of cyberspace is that it is becoming a risky place for the entire spectrum of users: nation-states, nongovernmental and transnational organizations, commercial enterprises, and individuals. At the same time, it is a space of opportunities--for benevolent, neutral, and malevolent actors. The authors identify and assess the challenges and threats to security that can arise in cyberspace because of its unique nature. In the final section, the authors discuss a variety of responses, with some suggesting that the most favored options being pursued by the United States are poorly conceived and ill-suited to the tasks at hand.

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About the Author: ABOUT THE EDITORS



PHIL WILLIAMS holds the Wesley W. Posvar Chair in International Security Studies at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh and is the director of the University's Matthew B. Ridgway Center for International Security Studies. From 2007 to 2009, he was a visiting research professor at the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI), U.S. Army War College (USAWC). During the last 22 years, his research has focused primarily on transnational organized crime. Dr. Williams has published extensively in the field of international security. He wrote two monographs for the USAWC--The New Dark Age: The Decline of the State and U.S. Strategy and Criminals, Militias and Insurgents: Organized Crime in Iraq. He has written on international security in Survival; Washington Quarterly; The Bulletin on Narcotics; Scientific American; Crime, Law and Social Change; and International Peacekeeping. In addition, Dr. Williams was founding editor of a journal entitled Transnational Organized Crime and edited several volumes on organized crime. Since then, Dr. Williams has published chapters and articles on terrorist networks and finances, the Madrid bombings, Mexican drug violence, Nigerian organized crime, and human trafficking. He is currently working on the crisis of governance in the northern triangle of Central America.

DIGHTON FIDDNER is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He currently teaches international relations, American foreign policy, and public policy courses. His interests also include national and international security policy, complexity, and the information system as a national security risk. Dr. Fiddner has hosted seven collaborative roundtables on cyberspace's role in national security. He has also presented his research on cybersecurity at four national and four international conferences. Prior to his academic career, Dr. Fiddner served in the U.S. Army, retiring as a lieutenant colonel in September 1988. During his military career, he worked on various national security issues. His career included service in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. In recent years, Dr. Fiddner has published numerous articles on cyberspace. Dr. Fiddner holds a B.S. in psychology from Davidson College, an M.A. in political science from Kansas University, and a Ph.D. in political science from the School of Public and International Affairs at University of Pittsburgh.